Elmore Leonard - Mr. Paradise

"Not after."

"Jackie's gonna have a talk with him."

"He seems harmless."

"But he was there," Delsa said.

"You know Montez is your guy. But it comes down to my word against his," Kelly said. "Isn't that right?"

"So far."

"If he doesn't admit being involved you'll have to let him go?"

The way she said it Delsa wasn't sure if she was hopeful or apprehensive. But if being near him freaked her, she wouldn't want to meet him on the street. Would she?

Maybe get Jackie to have a word with her.

"If we keep talking to him," Delsa said, "he'll want a lawyer. And if we can't arraign him on a warrant, he walks. We're looking for a motive. Who stands to gain from the old man's death, other than family? We rule out robbery-nothing was taken but a bottle of vodka, an expensive brand, Christiania, but not worth a home invasion. So we focus on Montez, a guy with felony indictments on his sheet but clean for the past ten years. If he isn't somehow involved, why is he lying to us?" Delsa threw in, "Assuming you're telling us the truth," and saw it give her a nudge.

Kelly, about to draw on her Slim, lowered it to the ashtray. "I told you who I am, I straightened that out."

"Not right away."

"No, and I explained why."

"Afraid of being too talkative."

"We got to the loft, I felt more secure. I told you everything I know."

"The house full of cops, you didn't feel safe?"

"Frank, I was semi-stoned, I wasn't sure what I felt. I didn't want to have to think and answer questions till I had a clear head."

On the defensive but cool now, using his name, comfortable in the chair.

"Okay," Delsa said, "we put the focus on Montez. If he's not involved, why is he lying? Why does he want you to be Chloe? There has to be something in it for him, a payoff that's worth becoming a suspect. He isn't in the old man's will. Neither is Chloe. So I wonder if Mr. Paradise had some other way of taking care of her, after his death. She ever mention anything like that?"

"He was giving her five thousand a week," Kelly said.

"Very generous man, but made no attempt to put Chloe in his will."

"Because of his son," Kelly said, "Tony Jr."

"So you did talk to her about it."

Delsa watched her tap the cigarette in the ashtray, twice, three times.

"Yeah, well, for the reason you said, the guy was so generous, I thought she'd be in his will. She told me why she didn't expect anything and really didn't care. Even the five thousand a week, Chloe could make more than that turning tricks."

Delsa said, "Amazing, isn't it?"

Kelly seemed to shrug, smoking her Slim.

"In the meantime," Delsa said, "we're working to get a lead on the two guys. We have to believe they were hired to hit the old man. The flip of a coin put Chloe there instead of you and they had to take her out."

"I think about that all the time," Kelly said.

"And Montez is part of it." He held her eyes for a few moments, looking to see what he might find in there. He said, "Give some thought to the two guys in the baseball caps. Tell me again what they looked like."

Carl Fontana and Art Krupa were at Nemo's on Michigan Avenue at a table, half past five, the bar side packed. They felt at home here, a block from Tiger Stadium, where they used to stop for a couple before a game and both rooms in the place would be full of fans. Carl was showing Art the front page of the paper, the headline:

Art said, "It doesn't look like him."

"It's an old picture," Carl said. "Must've been taken when he was about fifty."

Art read, "'Paradiso Sr., unidentified woman found dead in his living room.'" And said, "Why don't they know who she is? All they had to do was ask Montez."

"He prob'ly left," Carl said. "You know, so he can walk in with all the cops there, dumb look on his face, 'Hey shit, what's going on?'"

"Next thing," Art said, "they're checking his fuckin hands for gunshot residue."

The bartender motioned to them. "Art, telephone."

Art left the table and a minute later Avern Cohn came in the front looking around. Carl waved him over. Avern sat down saying, "How do you get a drink in this place?"

Carl said, "Fuck your drink. The guy was suppose to be alone. There's a half-naked broad sitting in the chair with him."

"The unexpected can happen," Avern said. "You did what you had to do."

"How come they don't say who she is?"

"I guess the cops don't want us to know."

The waitress came along the aisle. Carl stopped her. He said, "Geeja, keep an eye on us, will you, for Christ sake?" She stood with the edge of her tray against her cocked hip, not saying a word. Avern ordered a Chivas with one cube of ice. Carl said, "The same way without the tequila."

Picking up the empty beer bottles Geeja said, "Just the Coronas?"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"I was making sure," Geeja said. "What's the matter, Connie giving you a hard time?"

She left. Carl said, "I met Connie here. She use to work at the ballpark, behind a counter, and I'd meet her here after. Geeja's a friend of Connie's."

Avern was watching him, waiting and then saying, "I'm gonna tell you something that strikes me as fascinating, mysterious, like a portent. You're drinking Mexican beer, which I've never seen you do before, and I have a job prospect that comes out of the fatal shooting of three Mexicans, the night before last. It's in today's paper, page three. But the victims aren't identified, not even as Mexican. Their bodies were burned, one of them dismembered."

Carl said, "Why?"

Avern said, "Who knows. The house's only three blocks from here, the other side of the ballpark. Empty, half burned, you can go in and look around."

"For what?"

Art came back and sat down saying, "That fuckin smoke."

Carl said, "How'd he know to call you here?"

Avern held up his hand to Art and said to Carl, "I told Montez I was meeting you. I told him any hitch in the program, he'd have to tell you about it himself. I'm out of it." He said, "Unless, the way it's going, I end up representing Montez. He hasn't been arraigned, but it's a possibility."

Carl said, "They think he did it?"

"They'd like him as an accessory, at least. He falsely I.D.'s the girl you shot. But they can't prove he did it with malice, so they have to cut him loose."

Carl said, "Who'd he think she was?"

"Another girl was there and he made a mistake."

"There's nothing about that in the paper."

"I got it from Lloyd, the houseman."

Carl said, "You know the old guy, you know Montez, you know everybody in the house?"

"Hang out at Frank Murphy," Avern said, "you get a line on all the players. I've known Lloyd since he was holding up grocery stores. I represented him a couple of times. We'd run into each other and have a drink, tell stories. We try to top each other on the dumbest criminals we've known." Avern smiled, said, "That Lloyd," and shook his head. "He could write a book on playing a house nigger-eyes and ears open, mouth shut. I asked Lloyd to watch Montez for me. This was even before Montez came with the contract. He's working for old Tony all these years and has kept himself clean? It didn't sound like Montez. I said to Lloyd, 'He's getting something out of his faithful service.' And Lloyd said 'Yeah, he's getting the house when the man passes.'"

Carl said, "You pay Lloyd?"

"He owed me, I got him off on those early beefs in his youth. But now a few weeks ago Lloyd tells me the situation's changed. Montez isn't getting the house after all. He acted uppity and it pissed off the old man. Now his granddaughter gets the house. Then this morning I'm talking to Lloyd, he tells me there were two girls there last night. Chloe, the old man's girlfriend, and Kelly, her roommate. I spent four hundred and fifty bucks on Chloe one time and it was a highly memorable occasion." Avern touched his thinning gray hair, smoothing a spot. "She was in Playboy and her rate jumped up to nine hundred an hour."